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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Yogizuna who wrote (31604)	4/2/2005 9:02:09 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 90947

The law is an ass. It does not permit a doc to prematurely end a life with, say, an OD of morphine. It does allow a patient or a patient's designated representative to refuse to allow any artificial means of extending life - and that includes force feeding through a tube. The Schiavo case is an illustration that "hard cases make bad law". She was in a "persistent vegetative state" a long coma. Problem is, very rarely, they do end. This makes the determination that her case is impossible problematic. There is also brain death. In this, the higher centers of the bain are gone. They can not be bought back. Their lack of normal activity is demonstrable. Before the mechanisms of modern medicine they would quickly die. Now they can be kept alive indefinitely with feeding tubes, respirators, etc. There is a very large difference between this and "severely mentally and physically disabled." Brain death is the definition of death in EVERY state now. The person is DEAD. In this case removing a feeding tube is NOT starving them to death "simply because they are severely mentally and physically disabled." There's no there there anymore.

To: Yogizuna who wrote (31604)	4/2/2005 9:35:28 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

Let me add another situation to that: A family member has cancer. Metastasized (spreading) cancer. They will die. Attempting to remove all the cancer surgically will kill them; you just can't cut up a person that much. Numerous types of chemotherapy have been tried and failed. This is an aggressive cancer. You have medical power of attorney for that person. They are so loaded up with painkillers - dope -that they can no longer be expected to make rational decisions. The painkiller, in spite of the amount given, which is the max, is STILL not stopping the pain. The patient lives every day with severe pain in spite of the painkiller. What do you do? With current laws, just sit there and watch them die in pain. More analgesic will kill them; the docs won't give it because they can be charged with murder. What's wrong with this picture? The situation I'm presenting happened 30 years ago. I thought maybe better drugs would be available by now and it would be different. I've been told by someone that as of 5 years ago it hadn't changed a bit. Enjoy you're life while you've got it. And may this sort of death happen only to those who prevent such situations from being humanely terminated.